WASHINGTON, Nov 10: The US has strongly criticized India for failing to bring justice to the victims of the 2002 riots in Gujarat that killed nearly 2,000 people, most of them Muslims.

“Despite the (Indian) government’s efforts to foster communal harmony, some extremists continued to view ineffective investigation and prosecution of attacks on religious minorities as a signal that they could commit such violence with impunity,” said a US State Department report on religious freedom issued on Wednesday.

The report details the steps taken by the Manmohan Singh coalition government to address the failures of the government of Gujarat to halt expeditiously Hindu-Muslim riots there in 2002.

“While the Indian constitution provides for freedom of religion, the government occasionally has not acted fast enough to prevent religious violence,” said the report which particularly cites the Gujarat riots as an example of official negligence.

“The (Indian) government generally respects this right in practice. However, the government sometimes in the recent past did not act swiftly enough to counter societal attacks against religious minorities and attempts by some leaders of state and local governments to limit religious freedom,” the report noted.

India’s record of religious freedom has “significantly improved” with the UPA government’s espousal of an “inclusive and secular platform” but “problems still remain in some areas,” the report said.

The report, whose tone and tenor is in marked contrast to the years when the BJP-led NDA was in power, also commended UPA’s repeal of the controversial Prevention of Terrorist Act and withdrawal of school textbooks “espousing a Hindu nationalist agenda”.

“With a Muslim President, Sikh Prime Minister and a Christian head of the governing parliamentary party, the UPA government has demonstrated its commitment to a policy of religious inclusion at its highest levels and throughout this generally tolerant and highly diverse society,” said the report which takes a broad sweep of religious freedom across the world under a mandate of US Congress.

The report claimed that despite the Indian government’s rejection of ‘Hindutva’, the ideology “continued to influence governmental policies and societal attitudes in some regions at the state and local levels, especially in areas governed by the opposition BJP”.

The report noted that despite the steps taken by the central government, prospects of justice for the victims of the 2002 Gujarat riots remained uncertain.